


now watch the queen conquer

by shortitude



Series: elastic hearts [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Bellamy has it bad and everyone knows, Brolarke (platonic af), F/M, Gen, Political Drama, Wick is so inconsequential he doesn't get a character tag sorry, ensemble fic or at least i tried, future speculation fic, i have a character bias on this show and her name is raven, i'm virtually incapable of not shipping rellamy even in genfics, mentions of torture, not actually sorry at all, vague mentions of ptsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 15:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4105267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortitude/pseuds/shortitude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A whole year goes by, from the end of the war against Mount Weather, until the beginning of dissent among the survivors. And it goes like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	now watch the queen conquer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/gifts).



> semele dared me to write a future fic that was set ten years later and focused on Bellamy and Raven. I kind of did exactly the opposite of that, but also not, so maybe she won't mind? 
> 
> This fic includes everything it says on the exorbitant amount of tags, plus hopefully enough worldbuilding for the beginning of a series that can -- in the future -- contain a lot more sex. Because who am I, writing gen? Also basically this is the series where Raven is the queen and everyone is so okay with it, especially Bellamy. And Clarke.

Time passes and divides the remaining Ark people into two factions. It doesn’t happen right away, the adults have more tact than that, but those who are ready for the separation know to gird down for it. 

A whole year has to go by, from the end of the war against Mount Weather, until the beginning of dissent within the survivors. It goes like this: 

\---

Two months after Mount Weather, Raven Reyes gets back on her feet. It feels like an inconsequential event to most adults who barely remember how many times Raven Reyes saved their lives – who don’t even know (because Abby never shared this information lightly) that without Raven they’d have all died out in space months ago – but it’s a big thing for the Delinquents. The remaining handful of them, as it turns out, have had these two months to remember. 

And they’ve recalled the fall of the shooting star that was actually Reyes in a space bucket she fixed up herself. They remembered her fixing up a radio transmission system with the Ark on her first day down; her blowing up a bridge that outlasted nuclear war just to keep the camp safe; her crawling out from the dropship bleeding. Not many people remember her screams during surgery; Murphy, thankfully, is gone and doesn’t have anything useful to add, Finn is too dead to remind anyone of how strong she is and was, and Bellamy knows Raven well enough to know that she wouldn’t need anyone to be reminded of that just so they could respect her more. 

In the month and a half they keep her locked up in medical care so she can recover from the invasive torture – and the grief, the loss, every little cut she’d endured along the way and pushed through because there was a deadline catching up with them and their people were in danger under the mountain – Raven’s name becomes one that is whispered with admiration around camp fires at night. 

(It’s Bellamy who starts it. He visits her twice during the first week, chased out of the tent by Raven’s vitriolic words and her _I don’t need your fucking pity, you want to help me, then stop looking at me like that_. He can’t do much for her anymore, and this he knows. But something within him wants to.

Octavia explains it in her own way, later that day in his tent. “It’s gratefulness,” she tells him, quietly. “That someone gets you, who you are, _how_ you are, and doesn’t ask anything in return for this understanding. We haven’t had a lot of people like that.” We means Bellamy and Octavia, and she’s right. Raven Reyes took one look into his eyes, pressed a knife to his throat and read him down to his soul. She’s broken rules and laws countless times for him since, with the right pretext on her tongue always, but with the unspoken acknowledgement of why she did it. She’d understood that nothing pushed Bellamy forward and made him more effective than taking care of Octavia, than taking care of his people.

She’d chewed his head off once by telling him to show his people he gave a damn, and in the process took him from dictator to hero. So, he doesn’t plan for it explicitly but he wants to return the favour.)

They don’t bring her flowers. Well, Harper does – shocking all – if you count a handful of leaves as flowers; they’re peppermint leaves, which she tells Raven to chew on because it helps with anxiety and other fucked up emotions, of which everyone has plenty. (Harper learnt that from one of the families of rebels she hid with one day, and though she doesn’t call them by name – nobody ever does anymore – she keeps the things they’d taught her like precious treasures.) 

Mostly they get her things to work on with her hands. Two months is a long time to be stuck to a bed with nothing to do, and some nights it feels longer. (This is why: Kyle, for all that he’s done for Raven – and yes, he’s done plenty – seems to think that him carrying her back from Mount Weather means they’re together. He spends his evenings in a chair at her bedside telling her about repairs and giving her the status on his newest projects. It doesn’t bother her at first, until he gets sent biweekly to Mount Weather to see what they can reuse, and he still tells her. He’s well-intentioned, to be sure, thinking that hearing about all the things she _can’t do_ will somehow make her feel better, but after the third time Raven quietly tells him to stop he keeps going, she starts hearing it. Starts counting how many times he says _me_ and _I did_ and _I think_ , and how many times he asks for her opinions. The data is abysmal.)

Her friends – and they are her friends, they _are_ because they get her (or maybe they get her because Bellamy tells them what to do around campfires every night; she doesn’t know this) – bring her things to do in the most inconspicuous way; so much that it takes Raven a week to realize what’s happening. First it’s Miller wondering if she can fix a radio, later it’s Monty with pen and paper and a request to design a smaller distillery that he can build on the sly, Harper with the peppermint and a walkie-talkie that won’t work, Bellamy with a gun that needs to stop jamming up. She handles them all automatically, at first. When it becomes clear that they’re doing it on purpose – when Miller brings in a walkie-talkie that looks like it’s been smacked against a tree a couple of times – she feels unexpectedly warm and a part of something again. 

Two months after Mount Weather, Raven Reyes gets back on her feet. It may seem like an inconsequential event to most of the adults, who by now are battling with the power play between Kane and Abby _yet again_ , but to the Delinquents it’s huge. 

If someone were to remember the old holy books, they’d describe it as almost biblical. She is instructed by Jackson to take it easy and given physical exercises to do every hour on the hour in order to make her recovery as much of a full one as possible. There’s a circle of people around her when it happens, as many of the Delinquents as the medical room can fit, surrounding Raven like some sort of shield. 

It’s not hushed with reverence when they help her outside. Her friends – and they are, they are her friends, she has friends again – talk her ear off and exhaust her with plans and gossip even before they reach the outside of the Ark, and it’s so effective that she doesn’t even realize that they’re all collectively acting like a crutch. So effective, that when they all cross paths with Abby and Kane, Raven doesn’t even realize she has forty young adults standing behind her looking fierce and ferocious and ready to strike. 

\---

Five months after Mount Weather, there is a Council meeting. Given how small the number of survivors is, the Council is now down to two of the official members so Abby has to make concessions. Miller’s father gets voted on the council because he has an automatic way in with the Delinquents – who are not afraid to jut their chins out at authority, not scared of the answer to _What’re you gonna do, float me?_ anymore – and he has the right to appoint another candidate himself so he chooses Bellamy. 

It surprises nobody, at least nobody who has been on the ground with Bellamy long enough to know he’s got a head for politics that will make the grown-ups want to rip their hair out. Bellamy, however, is different now than he was before Mount Weather. They all are. But Bellamy’s the one waking up every night, alone, his hand clenched around thin air like he’s still holding that lever. ( _”Make them stop, right now.”_ because they were going to kill their people.) 

Bellamy has to give his own candidate, to make sure there is no chance of a tie in voting if the Council ever has to vote. Now, the thing is, he knows what Abby thinks he’d do if Clarke were here with them. It’s been no secret among the people of Camp Jaha that Bellamy and Clarke had worked well together, but the solid truth of the matter was that he wouldn’t have named Clarke even if she hadn’t decided to leave their people. If Clarke had come back in those five months, having forgiven herself, he still wouldn’t have picked her; maybe _because_ she’d left their people. Bellamy has forgiven, and will forgive, many things – take the weight of many sins on his shoulders – but he values unity now, and sticking through the mess together. 

He names Raven his candidate, and Miller approves the motion; Kane and Abby are too smart to not realize they’re backed into a corner on this, and that is how Raven Reyes becomes a political animal.

\---

For a while, things work out fine because there are things to be done, and though it bothers the adults that they are no longer an authority in some aspects of earth survival, they accept that Bellamy and Raven both come with good ideas to the table. 

First, there is the insulation of the Ark for winter, with the construction of one small hut made out of metal from the wreckage where the other station fell, to serve as private chambers for the Chancelor. This process occupies them a whole three months, and puts everyone to work. Factions are sent out to Mount Weather to get new supplies, more supplies, all supplies because they’re so greedy. The war may be over, but those who return do it looking more grim than they left; the corpses had to be incinerated to keep infection from finding a breeding ground. It doesn’t help that they sent at least a dozen Delinquents back there to search through the bunker for anything useable for winter. 

The reason why the separate Chancellor hut was a bad idea is that it separates Abby from the rest of the people, putting her on metaphorically higher ground. The other reason is, as long as they can’t spare insulating material for the hut, every Council meeting is audible for those who are near the hut. And they get loud. 

Or rather, Raven gets loud. 

It becomes clear on the seventh month, after another faction returns from another search-and-strip trip to Mount Weather, that Raven Reyes has just about had enough with the status quo. She barges into the Chancellor hut, Bellamy in tow looking ready to bite off heads, and leaves the door open so everyone working their shift in the gardens or the armory can hear her when she yells.

“You are _hurting_ my fucking people,” echoes through Camp Jaha even though there’s no wall for the sound to bounce off on. There’s a tremor in Raven’s voice that those who know her recognize as the boiling point. 

(Later, around campfires that night, it’s the half a dozen kids who’d been on duty on fence repair behind the hut who retell the dialogue between their Council representatives and the Chancellor, like so:

“So then the Chancellor says, Raven you need to calm down,” says Miller, reaching out for the bottle of hooch Monty passes him. “And Raven says—“

“I’ll calm down when you stop sending the same people who were _tortured_ there and kept _prisoners_ there for weeks back to look for your scraps,” interrupts Monty, quiet, staring at the fire. Harper, sitting next to him, reaches over and touches his hand; Monty and Harper came back this morning, arms full of blankets and faces full of horror and regret. 

“And then?” asks someone, from the back, tension in their voice. 

Miller snorts, and takes another swig. “She gave Raven some line about everyone needing to contribute, and Raven basically told her to go fuck herself.”

“I did not,” comes the interruption, this time from Raven, who sits down next to Miller as soon as someone scoots to make some space for her. Nobody feels like talking about the meeting anymore, now that the subject of their discussion is sitting among them reaching for the booze. But just as Bellamy joins them, coming to stand behind Raven and Miller instead of sitting down, she breaks the tension with a soft snort. “I told her to go fuck the leg of that chair she thinks is a throne.” 

Laughter descends, quiet and rebellious, and everyone but a handful of people miss the way Raven’s fingers seem to linger when she hands Bellamy the bottle up over her shoulder.)

\---

Winter comes. It’s too cold for a coup, so they endure. That’s the thing about the Delinquents, they have all endured so much – in their minds, so much more than any of the adults in Camp – so they are used to it. But it’s getting closer to a year since Mount Weather, and peace doesn’t feel peaceful, and they feel restless. Still, they endure.

(Once, after the first time the garden freezes, Octavia catches Bellamy on his way to Raven’s workshop. He is bringing her tarp – she’s working on a sort of greenhouse for the garden, because they’ve got to eat and she refuses to live on nuts and leaves and air again – and a blanket from his room. The workshop gets cold.

“God, you’re so obvious you’re not even trying anymore,” his sister says, patting his shoulder with amused condescension. 

Bellamy would like to believe only she sees it.)

\---

Then, spring. Spring is busy because there’s half a harvest, and dramatic because that’s when Raven tells Wick to stop treating her like they’re already married. 

It happens in full view of the Delinquents, actually, which probably grates Wick the most; speculating minds believe that’s why he approached the subject then, because he thought Raven wouldn’t roast him in public. But the thing he hasn’t seemed to grasp or like much is that Raven Reyes has a support system of forty people, who don’t ask her to figure herself out because they’re just as fucked up as her, and who don’t bother her for affection when she flinches at every little movement around her, and who don’t act like jealous asses about every guy she spends more than once talking to. 

The Ark used to hold movie nights for the richer echelons of society, and every now and then they’d break out what was supposed to pass for popcorn but became more like a reason to dream of what popcorn was actually like. The point is, this is the moment almost everyone present wishes they had one of those bowls full of popcorn, because the show is terrific. 

\---

Summer is when it gets bad. Several things happen. 

Clarke comes back. 

She is welcomed back by Abby, scolded softly and fussed over even though she looks uncomfortable. She is welcomed back by the Delinquents, who bring Clarke back up to speed; they tell her about Bellamy and Raven being on the Council, about how often they’ve been sent back to Mount Weather, about the hushed talk of elections in the future. 

(“So, you and Raven,” Clarke tells Bellamy later after the rest of the people have gone to bed, after they’ve both skirted around the issue of Clarke’s disappearance for eleven months and the feelings her return brings back. 

“There’s nothing there,” Bellamy answer, like there’s an _anymore_ or a _right now_ left unspoken. His gaze follows the movement of Miller and Raven carrying a very drunk and very giggly Monty inside the Ark, and there must be something in his eyes as he does because Clarke lets out a little laugh, like she’s surprised.

“Plants that last past the winter grow stronger roots,” she says, cryptic as fuck, and then proceeds to balance a spoon on her nose. If there’s a twist in Bellamy’s stomach at the thought, he refuses to acknowledge it because these are just the inebriated metaphors of a huge dork.)

\---

Everyone expects things to bubble over and turn ugly again when the anniversary comes through, at least between Clarke and Raven. So it shocks the whole Camp when tensions come to a snap between Raven and the Chancellor. 

The issue of Finn’s ashes is brought up. 

It seems like as far as Raven goes with accepting betrayal and moving on, her glass finally overspills. 

\---

One day later, Raven Reyes packs up shop and leaves Camp Jaha. Forty-two people follow. 

\---

They clear the area around the dropship in a day and a half, and set up camp there. It takes them all three weeks to bring it back to the way it was before, then better, and the reason they can do this is because they’ve got a trading card.

Raven sells her services to Camp Jaha now in exchange for supplies and access to scrap metal. Because the last mechanical engineer left, and took with her all her ideas for the winter, and because there are things Kyle can’t do and Sinclair pretends like he doesn’t know how to do, Kane brings with him a contract and a truce. 

But the schism is already there, and the Delinquents, Bellamy and Raven, they have no reasons to go back. 

\---

In the autumn they build huts. By the time the first snow falls, they manage to get four of them insulated properly against the cold, and have a greenhouse that will keep them fed through the harder months. The huts are big enough to fit ten people each, and nobody complains about it, because everyone wants this; the camaraderie, the people that understand everything they’ve been through, that know what they need. 

It’s unintentional, but everyone sort of accepts that once they get the inside of the dropship clean again, upstairs is where Raven lives and works. The stairs themselves are an issue for her leg, so as a sort of early winter gift, a couple of people who know their way around mechanics design and install a system of pulleys that Raven can use to pull herself up and lower herself down with. They leave the stairs, for everyone else. 

Downstairs on the main floor of the drop ship is where meetings happen every night, and where everyone believes Bellamy sleeps. 

But though Clarke and Octavia walk in on Bellamy carrying Raven up the stairs in his arms one night, laughing into her hair and pretending like she weighs a ton just to make her slap the side of his head, the girls both decide that there are some matters that don’t need to be shared with absolutely everyone. 

\---

Bellamy and Octavia decide on the camp name, and Clarke paints the board they put up above the gate announcing any visitor’s entrance to _Camp New Rome_. 

(“Well, you finally get to be the King of something,” is what Raven will tell Bellamy that night, when the meeting is over and everyone’s gone to bed. She watches him pick up a few more blueprints – more huts and an expansion that can include an actual functioning kitchen, because raw meat gets tiresome after two years – and set them away, before he looks at her with a smirk that’s reminiscent of old Bellamy.

“I’ll settle for being the king of some _place_.” He shows her which, then. Oh, does he show her.)

\---

(Years down the line, he’s still not done showing her.)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this two hours before a final exam; it's unbeta-d as hell, please don't take that into account. I'll fix stuff as I see it.


End file.
